The present invention relates to a handheld electric beater-mixer, particularly a kitchen beater-mixer, adapted to drive at least one so-called beating accessory such as for example a whisk or a so-called mixing accessory turning at high speed, such as for example a mixer foot, and comprising a body containing an electric drive motor, two rotatable coupling devices which are connected to the motor shaft and which are adapted to receive, via respectively two engagement passages opening from the body, the beating accessory and respectively the mixing accessory, and a safety device adapted to prevent the simultaneous emplacement of two accessories, respectively for beating and for mixing.
There is meant by beating accessory a working tool of the whisk or blender type, and by mixing accessory an accessory with a working tool turning at high speed of the rotatable helical mixer foot type, or else of the mixer bowl type with a rotating knife.
With such a kitchen appliance, it is known that the presence of a safety device preventing the concomitant emplacement of the two accessories, respectively for beating and mixing, is particularly useful to protect the user from any risk of wounding which would be due to the two working tools in movement simultaneously if the apparatus were started with the two accessories in place.
In a known kitchen device of this type, the safety device which prevents the simultaneous emplacement of the two accessories, respectively for beating and for mixing, comprises a strap slidably horizontally mounted in the body of the apparatus, of which one end is shaped as a hooked tongue arranged in the engagement passage for the mixing accessory, and whose other end is shaped as a fork with several teeth, which fork is associated with an ejection member displaceable vertically between a low position and a high position under the action of the beating accessory. The fork of the strip is adapted to free the movement of the ejector member so as to permit the emplacement of the beating accessory, the hooking tongue of the strip closing the engagement passage for the mixing accessory; following disengagement of the hooking tongue of the strip under the action of the mixing accessory during its emplacement, the fork of the strip is adapted to block, by one of its teeth, the ejection member in the lower position, thereby preventing the emplacement of the beating accessory. Such a safety device is however complicated and is relatively complicated to use by being subject to the good operation of the ejection member mounted in the apparatus.
The invention has particularly for its object to overcome these drawbacks and to provide a handheld electric beater-mixer, of the type described above, in which the safety device will be simple, economical, reliable and perfectly adapted to mass production.
According to the invention, the safety device comprises a mechanical member movable so as to block selectively one or the other of the two engagement passages for the beating accessory and for the mixing accessory.
Thus, thanks to this selective blocking member acting directly on the two engagement passages, respectively for the beating accessory and for the mixing accessory, it will be understood that the use of the piece is thereafter rendered independent of any movable member belonging to the apparatus, which permits simplifying the safety device by rendering it particularly reliable.